THIRTY MINUTES OVER OREGON: A Japanese Pilot's World War II Story by Marc Tyler 
Nobleman.  Illus. by Melissa Iwai.  New York:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2018. 
42p.  ISBN 978-0544430761 hc. $17.99    Gr.2-5    J940.54

After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, drawing the United States into World War II, the
U.S. retaliated by bombing Tokyo, Japan’s largest city.  That led to another attack on the U.S.
- this time a mission to start fires with bombs near the town of Brookings, Oregon.  This true
 story focuses on Nobuo Fujita, the pilot of that plane who catapulted his plane from a 
Japanese submarine and flew to the Oregon coast.  Although Fujita completed his bombing 
mission, only one bomb detonated and didn't burn very long in the wet forest.  The war 
ended in 1945, and Nobuo Fujita became a regular civilian, although he harbored some guilt 
about his part in wartime destruction.  The town of Brookings, however, invited him to a 
Memorial Day Festival to put old World War II resentment to rest.  He accepted the invitation, 
and began a 35 year journey of forgiveness and acceptance between the people of his home
in Japan and his new friends in Oregon.  Over time, he donated money to the Brookings 
library for "children's books that celebrate other cultures" with the hope that understanding 
other people would prevent future conflict between cultures. Nobuo Fujita died in 1997 at the 
age of 85.


Lynette Suckow, Superiorland Preview Center, Marquette, MI